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Monday, November 1, 2010

Back from hiking

Chattanooga was great. The leaves were beautiful and it was refreshingly cool in the evenings. The trails were oddly unmarked which led to a more adventurous hike then the terrain normally would have, I'm spoiled by Western NY trails that even give mileage markers. Tami, my staunchly conservative sister and I, the arty right-brained one, managed to see the sights and wander around the woods without strangling each other in spite of a few tense moments. We went on a cavern tour which was surprisingly gorgeous, the guide was funny and the waterfall inside the mountain was breathtaking. I'm a sucker for a good waterfall. Rock City was strenuous enough for me to find it a good time, and bizarro at the end. How to even describe this? Inside a big cave, plastered with coral, some wealthy and evidently also insane German woman had hundreds of gnomes shipped over from Germany in the 30s and placed them in odd tableaus here and there. Then, as if that isn't odd enough, you get to Fairy-tale land. Not Disney fairy tales, Grimm.
It is claimed that kids are delighted by this. We didn't have any with us (thank God) but it was creepy as hell in my opinion.
Finished the first workout after vacation, it was not a session I looked forward to but I feel so good now. Squats are still a work in progress, 75 lbs and shaky legs. Bench press was ok, 70 lbs and felt good, deadlifts were the best, 2 warmup sets then a full five rep set of 135. I added two sets of back extensions and lat pulldowns at 90 lbs. I'm pretty beat right now. The plan is to continue training until the January ski trip, when I'll be gone for two weeks. I may be able to train at my cousin's gym during that time too.